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Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

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Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#211

Post by sizzle »

lazarus01 wrote: post #209

I can see how therapy can be helpful for some people. But I find it to be a big scam from my own personal experience. What incentive do they have to give you immediate and durable results? Why do most only take cash? I did some ML work with an addiction psychiatrist at the peak of the opioid crisis. He said,”To pay my bills, I have to treat rich people.” I find taking long walks and speaking candidly about how I’m fe…

You are assuming everyone has someone to take long walks with and speak their innermost vulnerable thoughts/feelings with. A therapist is a paid person to achieve this same outcome.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#212

Post by darkhorse222 »

cheald wrote: post #2

This is a finding that keeps coming up, and I've certainly found it true in my life, but there's a significant chicken-and-egg problem in that depression frequently precludes the motivation to exercise, and if you don't already have a deeply-disciplined routine to overcome the lack of motivation, people won't do it. Exhortation to develop those good habits in the good times, I suppose.

My two cents on this topic is to create short term, superficial incentives to help create the practices that yield the long term incentives. For me this is paying extra for a gym with a hot tub, sauna, and cold plunge. Now I derive relaxation from the workout, but before that I also received a lot of support from the knowledge that the amenities afterwards were waiting for me.

I'm not a big believer in discipline.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#213

Post by jjulius »

sarchertech wrote: post #207
jjulius wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, you can do it with kids! I have two that are about to be 4 and 6, here are my weekdays: - Alarm at 4:30. 5 mins of breathing exercises, 20 mins of meditation. - Make coffee, have breakfast, out the door to work by ~5:30. - Get to work's gym by 5:45, cardio for 60 mins. - In my office by 7:00-7:15. - 3:30, 25 mins of breathe work and meditation again. Tuesdays and Thursdays, this is 3:15 so I can fit in ~30 mins…

There’s a few things required to make that work for you. You fall asleep instantly every night or function on less than 7 hours of sleep long term. You have a 15 minute commute. You don’t seem to need any slack time to deal with any issues that pop up. 4 year old has a meltdown because the 6 year old ate the last fruit snack. One of the kids decides to wake up at 3am. Friends come over for dinner and throw off the ro…

So I made my original post knowing full well that my situation is my own and YMMV, but to speak to those concerns wrt my schedule/life...

>You fall asleep instantly every night...

Actually, yes! Two points there. First, when I'm out of my routine, not working out, drinking lots of coffee and eating like garbage, I sleep like ass. When I'm in my routine, eating well, and only having a cup of coffee with breakfast, I'm incredibly energized throughout the day and end up suddenly feeling tremendously tired right around 8:45/9:00.

The second part is that my father's side of the family is notorious for falling asleep anywhere, anytime. There's a litany of photos of us passed out on couches in the middle of packed parties.

> Meltdowns

They happen, but they don't really rock the schedule in my experience. Bedtime somehow always ends up being bedtime. Might shift by ~15 or so occasionally, but never in a way that nukes my bedtime or anything.

>One of the kids wakes up at 3am.

This is entirely YMMV, but we sleep trained. For whatever absolutely fucking weird reason, neither kid has ever got themselves out of bed in the morning, they always wake up and wait for us to come get them. Earliest I hear one of them is occasionally 6 on the weekends, usually closer to 7. I feel tremendously lucky here, and recognize how not normal this is.

>Forgot dinner ingredient and load kids up...

Nah. I do my best to buy ingredients on the weekend for the week. Definitely isn't foolproof, but usually we just pivot to a meal I'd planned for another night, or we always have easy to make shit like mac and cheese or grilled cheese and tomato soup lying around to fall back on. Life doesn't need to be perfect and I'm cool with pivoting and not sticking to plans.

>Friends coming over

For our own sanity wrt my wife and I's schedules, we hang with friends on the weekend. Weekends are a lot more freeform for us.

>Household maintenance

Naturally, whoever isn't playing with the kids just falls into keeping the laundry moving and cleaning the kitchen. I'll take the kiddos to the grocery store on Saturday. Dishes happen quickly, we all help there.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#214

Post by is_true »

cheald wrote: post #2

This is a finding that keeps coming up, and I've certainly found it true in my life, but there's a significant chicken-and-egg problem in that depression frequently precludes the motivation to exercise, and if you don't already have a deeply-disciplined routine to overcome the lack of motivation, people won't do it. Exhortation to develop those good habits in the good times, I suppose.

If you are or you know some that is depressed one of the best things you can do is start exercising with someone.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#215

Post by lazarus01 »

sizzle wrote: post #211
lazarus01 wrote: post #209

I can see how therapy can be helpful for some people. But I find it to be a big scam from my own personal experience. What incentive do they have to give you immediate and durable results? Why do most only take cash? I did some ML work with an addiction psychiatrist at the peak of the opioid crisis. He said,”To pay my bills, I have to treat rich people.” I find taking long walks and speaking candidly about how I’m fe…

You are assuming everyone has someone to take long walks with and speak their innermost vulnerable thoughts/feelings with. A therapist is a paid person to achieve this same outcome.

No I’m not. Please read the first sentence of my post.

I agree, it’s tough to be honest when you’re vulnerable. Expressing vulnerability exposes how people really feel about you.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#216

Post by singpolyma3 »

cheald wrote: post #2

This is a finding that keeps coming up, and I've certainly found it true in my life, but there's a significant chicken-and-egg problem in that depression frequently precludes the motivation to exercise, and if you don't already have a deeply-disciplined routine to overcome the lack of motivation, people won't do it. Exhortation to develop those good habits in the good times, I suppose.

One thing that worked well for me is I switched my transportation to almost exclusively bicycle. Do I always want to exercise? Do I always want to get on my bike when it's below zero in active weather? No, not always. But if I want to get where I'm going that's my option and I get the exercise in the process (and save a buttload of money too)

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#217

Post by pinkmuffinere »

is_true wrote: post #214
cheald wrote: post #2

This is a finding that keeps coming up, and I've certainly found it true in my life, but there's a significant chicken-and-egg problem in that depression frequently precludes the motivation to exercise, and if you don't already have a deeply-disciplined routine to overcome the lack of motivation, people won't do it. Exhortation to develop those good habits in the good times, I suppose.

If you are or you know some that is depressed one of the best things you can do is start exercising with someone.

I really like this advice. When I'm sad I don't want to leave the house, and certainly won't have the motivation to do much exercise on my own. But having friends peer-pressure me into making good choices would (and has) helped a lot.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#218

Post by singpolyma3 »

smeej wrote: post #87
yomismoaqui wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motivation is fleeting but routine persists. When there is something that you want to do regularly (exercise, doing the final boring part of some sideproject, cleaning the house...) you remove willpower from the equation and set a day and a time. For example, everyday from 18 to 19 I work on my sideprojects, or saturdays from 16 to 18 is house cleaning time. There is no question if I want to do it, it is set at that…

> There is no question if I want to do it, it is set at that time and I have to do it, period. Gosh it must be nice to have at least an ordinary amount of executive function skills. Is it really this easy for neurotypical people to build routines? That's really all it takes? I don't see how this removes willpower at all. It just determines what time you have to use it.

Your daily reminder that neurotypical people do not exist.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#219

Post by byproxy »

smeej wrote: post #87
yomismoaqui wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motivation is fleeting but routine persists. When there is something that you want to do regularly (exercise, doing the final boring part of some sideproject, cleaning the house...) you remove willpower from the equation and set a day and a time. For example, everyday from 18 to 19 I work on my sideprojects, or saturdays from 16 to 18 is house cleaning time. There is no question if I want to do it, it is set at that…

> There is no question if I want to do it, it is set at that time and I have to do it, period. Gosh it must be nice to have at least an ordinary amount of executive function skills. Is it really this easy for neurotypical people to build routines? That's really all it takes? I don't see how this removes willpower at all. It just determines what time you have to use it.

What makes this “neurotypical?” I don’t necessarily consider myself as such, but I’ve made it a point to have some routine in my life. In fact, I think being highly regimented and sticking to a routine can be very neuroatypical. I would never go so far as to say I’m autistic, but there are markers on that spectrum, like becoming upset when a routine is disrupted. I certainly am perturbed when I’ve set some routine for myself and something interrupts it.
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